Gilbert Arenas, Eddie Jordan mini-interviews

Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas has returned to practice. Here’s what he said today:

Gilbert Arenas on practice: “It felt good. I was surprised about my wind…I wasn’t as tired as I thought I was going to be. I was just excited to get out there and play basketball.”

Gilbert Arenas on his knee: “My knee is fine so far. We’ll see how it acts tomorrow after a day of rest.”

Gilbert Arenas on regaining his confidence: “Little by little it comes back, the more you play, the more you interact on the floor, the more you watch. Just to go out there and do things you are used to doing…you just have to get your confidence back little by little.”

Gilbert Arenas on the team’s potential with a healthy roster: “We know how good we are. We showed it last year when we were blowing teams out and playing great basketball. They are still playing great basketball without me and Caron (Butler), and that shows a lot.”

And here’s Wizards coach Eddie Jordan:

Eddie Jordan on today’s practice: “It was great…the guys were active and were into it. Gilbert (Arenas) had a good first practice, and Etan (Thomas) practiced today and had some physical contact.”

Eddie Jordan on Gilbert Arenas: “We are trying to allow him to come into practice and do a lot of non-contact drills, and when we do get into contact, we want to allow him to see where the contact is coming from. So we limited back screens and pick-and-roll screens when he can’t see it. We want him to react to seeing a screen coming, and as we move along we will get him in more normal situations. I thought he handled it well.”

More from Eddie Jordan on Arenas: “What was great was that Gil brings energy. His passing was phenomenal. The way he found people with his passing was phenomenal. His team got a lot of easy baskets in practice, not just Antawn (Jamison) and Brendan (Haywood), but also (Oleksiy) Pecherov and Dominic (McGuire).”

Eddie Jordan on the Orlando Magic: “They are a good team and I hope that we have some kryptonite somewhere in our lineup, because Superman (Dwight Howard) is pretty good, and they have a good supporting cast around him. They are good all the way around and they have a good coaching staff, so it is going to be a great challenge for us.”